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NEBRASKA AND KANSAS 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. BISHOP PERKINS, OF NEW YORK, 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 10, 1854 




The House being in the Committee of the Whole 
on the state* of the Union — 

Mr. PERKINS, of New York, said: 

Mr. Chairman: I rise to address the committee 
upon the subject now under consideration; and, at 
the outset, 1 will make a few remarks in relation 
to the history of the bill as it came to us from the 
Senate. There was first brought into the Senate 
and House a bill for the organization of one 
Territory, and the author of the bill declared that 
he was not prepared to repeal the Missouri com- 
promise. A week or two passed by, and, by some 
appliances which had been used, in what way I 
know not, the same committee came to the con- 
clusion that it would be a desirable matter to re- 
peal the Missouri compromise, and a section for 
that purpose was introduced. I will not at this time 
go into a lengthened argument to show that the 
repeal of the Missouri compromise would reestab- 
lish the slave laws of Louisiana as they were 
when it was purchased. I have no doubt that 
such would be the legal effect. I am satisfied that 
the present bill, with the Badger amendment, 
leaves the territory in question, in respect, to 
slavery, what has been repeatedly called upon 
this floor tabula rasa, that is, without law upon this 
subject. 

Why is a bill introduced here providing for the 
organization of two Territories instead of one? I 
will tell you what I believe. If you had kept all 
this territory together, so that the northern people 
who should move in there, and should have a 
voice in the Territory, they would probably con- 
trol it, and some of the judges would be from 
.the northern States, and would hold office there, 
who do not believe in the doctrine that slavery is 
recognized by the universal and common law of 
this country; and that the colored man would 
not be entitled to his freedom. It seems to me 
that the intention ih introducing a bill for the or- 
ganization of two Territories is to provide for the 



selection of southern judges for the southern Ter- 
ritory, who might carry out such laws as the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bayly] has just 
proclaimed upon this floor, viz: that once a slave, 
always and everywhere a slave, uritil he could 
show his express charter to freedom. If judges 
of that stamp were secured in Kansas, possibly 
a judge might be selected for the more northern 
Territory who might hold that human flesh, body 
and mind, were not the most legitimate property 
for either the yoke or for trade and traffic; in 
short, that freedom was* the law, and slavery the 
exception. 

It is with the object of carrying slavery into th 
southern territory that the bill has provided for 
the organization of two Territories. I defy any 
man to assign any other rational reason for 
making two Territories in place of one, and putting 
the bill in the shape in which it is now presented, 
unless it be the hope and expectation of its author 
that enough slaveholders will get into the southern 
Territory, with southern officers to be appointed 
in it, to make a slave Territory. 

Sir, instead of having the people of the Terri- 
tory make the laws for their own government, the 
intention of this bill is to have the judges make 
the law. The intention of it is, expressly not to 
have the people make the law for themselves, but 
have a slavery judge make it, and to put them in 
a condition in which the judges shall make the 
law. That is the principle on which these two 
bills are founded, and the effect which they are 
calculated and intended to have; and no man will 
ever be nominated or confirmed either as Governor 
or judge for the southern Territory who is not a 
southern man — who will hold, as Mr. Bayly does, 
and has proclaimed here, that no negro can be free 
unless he can show a law granting it to him ex- 
pressly. 

Mr. Chairman, it is said that this bill confers 
self-government. Why, sir, instead of self-gov- 






ernrnent being maintained in this bill, almost 
every ted in the Declar- 

ation of Independence is contained in it. They 
are to be taxed without their consent; the'ir judges 

are sent there ov : n>:ed salaries; their 

Governors ait- sent to them with powers of veto, 
and all depen !■ .:; on the Government here for the 
term. and salary of their officers. Call it self-gov- 
ernment when the Governor, ju 
and all executive, judicial, and ministerial officers 
are appointed by jutive officer here, and 

hold the offices during his pleasure? How can 
the supporters of the bill come here and pretend 
that this : ; Why, t i 

the very hi lity, and the most pre- 

posterous humbug that has ever been attempted to 
be palmed off on the credulity of man. It seems 
to me — and no one can look upon it without re- 
garding it — as a mere matter of declamation, hum- 
bug, and false pretense. 

Mr. Chairman, my views in relation to slavery 
in this country are somewhat different from those 
of most of iii. : men who have 

addressed this House on the subject of the Ne- 
braska bill. 1 believe that the negro race are an 
inferior race. From the eai ory that we 

have of tl:, > ; have had all the same char- 

acteristics that they have now — in color, in con- 
formation, and in intelligence. They have never, 
of themselves, except in this country, made a 
single particle of advance towards civilization, 
or toward 

tion. I say, that though they are an inferior race, 
they are also, 1 suppose, the descendants of 
Noah. But, sir, I do say this, that if they are 
descendants of Noah, when the language of men 
was confounded, and the miracle was wrought to 
disperse men throughout the earth, there was a 
mark set up in this people destined to make a 
eepars he white man and the black; 

to be forever enduring, and to be the token that 
the curse of God would follow the intermingling 
of the two races in marriage. And the curse of 
God has ever followed sue!: ling. Their 

lives are short, and their constitutions feeble, and 
barbarism th • result. 

MrfChairman, I agree, too, with all those south- 
ern gentlemen who have spoken, that it is im- 
possible that the southern States should abolish 
slavery whereever there is a majority of colored 
over white people, or wherever there is a near 
approximation to equality of numbers. It cat 
be done, especially if there is a majority of slaves 
over freemen. You cannot give them their per- 
Bonal freedom without their having arms in their 
hands. If free, they would demand political 
rights; and if you i;ive them political rights, they 
become the governing power, and no white man 
will ever submit to be governed by a negro; no, 
never. They have got to remain as and where 
they now are. it is most unfortunate, so far as 
human wisdom ran see, that they are in this coun- 
try, but in the Providence of God they are here, 
three millions ami a half of slaves, and multiplying 
like the Israelites of old. God has chained the 
cause that brought them here, and so astonish- 
ingly multiplied them to their future destiny of 
weal or woe, and we, the whites, may well con- 
template that future with awe and trembli! -. 

Again, sir, I will advance the sentiment which 
I heard a distinguished Senator advance in the 



[discussion of the Texas question in my village in 
1844. After proclaiming and talking Abolitioi 

as strong as I ever heard any man talking it 

Several Members. What SenatorS 
Mr. PERKINS. The distinguished Senator 
\ from New York. 

Voices. Mr. Seward? 
Mr. PERKINS. Yes; Mr. Seward* He was 
makii lition speech through and through, 

id, in just so many woi * : would do 

i the negro no good to give him bis freedom, unless 
you gave him the ballot to protect his rights. 
Now, sir, give the negro ',\,? ballot in South Car- 
! olina, M be peace 

there; how long before one or the other race would 
lacred or driven out of the State? 
\ repeat, that so long as this race exists here in 
numbers, so as to constitute an approxima- 
tion towards an equality of numbers with the 
whitf beabol I without drench- 

ing the country in blood. But where they exist 
in small numbers, as in Mi v, I do not 

believe there would be any difficulty in abolishing 
it. The lb; y, and all 

I the surrounding difficulties which have accompa- 
nied it, have increased with the increase of that 
: population. In 1790 there were only little more 
than six hundred thousand .-laves, but there were, 
in 1850, thr< e million t I : laves 

|| in the United States. In 1790, at the close of the 
Revolution, slavery might have been abolished, 
for 1 say that, from actual observation and expe- 
rience, it is ascertained that wherever they (the 
blacks) have had their freedom, they become so 
congregated together in cities, and their habits so 
debased, that they do not increase their spe 
[They do not increase in numbers, but remain sta- 
tionary. If sla\ olished, the 
race would have passed away from- before the 
i whites as the Indians have done, and the country 
would have been measurably free of them. 

Now, I believe this is a notorious fact in the 

i history of :! , that wherever there is any 

| considerable nur es, ycu cannot 

abolition feeling. The 

i fact then is, as shown in Delaware and New Jer- 

I sey, that where the colored population do not 

exceed a fifth or sixth of the population^ there is 

no insuperable obstacle to emancipation, save the 

avarice of their masters; still, I admit here, that 

; dee colored men are substantially a nuisance, both 

j in the free and slave States. 

Some three months since, I asserted upon this 
I floor, that free labor and slave labor would never, 
j to any considerable extent, mingle themselves to- 
I gelher. The proof of that fact I will show from 
I the census papers directly. Free labor and black 
labor cannot and will not mingle. You go into 
' the residences in this city, and in one house you 
1 see almost all colored servants, and in another 
all white servants. There is a natural repulsion 
! between the two races. They never can live to- 
il r upon terms of equality. Wherever there 
are two sets of men, divided in color or religion, 
and refusing to intermarry with each other, the 
rights of one or of the other of those two classes of 
1 people must and will, so long as the laws of man 
and distinction of race prevail, be cloven down. 
The Jews are a striking example of that truth. 
There were in the incorporated free States, in- 1 



- eluding California, in 1790 and 1850, population 
and square miles of territory, %s follows: 



California , 

Connecticut ..•.. 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa , 

Maine 

Massachusetts .. 

Michigan 

New Hampshire 

New York 

New Jersey 

Ohio .' 

Pennsylvania. . . 
Rhode Island. .. 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Popula- 
tion in 
179U. 



Popula- 
tion in 

1850. 



238,141 

none. 

none. 

none. 
96,540 
378 7J1 

none. 
141,899 
340,120 
181,133 

none. 
434,373 
69,110 
85,416 

none. 



92,635 

370,792 
851,470 
988,416 
192,214 
583,169 
994.514 
397.654 
317.97:; 
3,097.394 
489,555 

2,311,786 

'117.54.-. 
314.120 
305^391 



1,968,455 13,434,960 643,326 



Square 
miles of 
territory 



188,982 

4,750 

55,409 

33,809 

50,914 

35,00U 

7.250 

5f>;243 

8,030 

48,000 

6.851 

39^964 

47,000 

],2o0 

8,000 

53,924 



Average the whole territory, nearly twenty-one 
souls to the square mile, and six and eight tenths 
times as many souls now in the free States as there 
were in 1790. 

There were in the incorporated slave States, in- 
cluding Texas, population in 1790 and 1850, ?tnd 
square miles of territory, as follows: 



Slave States. 



Popula- 
tion in 

179!). 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

North Carolina 

South Carolina 

District of Columbi 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



393,751 
249,073 

59,096 
none. 
82,518 
73,077 
none. 
319,726 
n mi . 
none. 

35,791 
none. 
748,308 



Popula- 
tion in 
1850 



771 ,023 

209,897 

869,039 

668.507 

51,687 

91,532 

87,455 

903,185 

982.405 

517,762 

583,034 

606,526 

682,044 

1.0112,717 
212,592 

1,421,661 



■ Square 
miles of 
territory 



1,961,370 9.634,666 928,947 



50,752 
52,198 
45.500 
28,000 
50 
2,120 
59,096 
58,000 
37,680 
41.348 
11,000 
47,151 
65.937 
44,000 
325,520 
61,325 



A little less than ten and a half souls to the 
square mile of territory, and not quite fivetimesas 
much population aa in 1790, about a third more 
territory than the free States, including California, 
and four millions less population, making twice 
as much population to the square mile of territory 
in the free as in the slave States. The population, 
as the tables show, was about equal in 1790; now 
the free States have about four millions more pop- 
ulation than the slave States. 

-Now, sir, all history, the very nature of the 
case, will show that there is no state, no condi- 
tion, in which man exists more favorable to the 
multiplication of the race than that of slavery, 
if the slaves are so valuable as to make it for the 
interest of their masters to have them comfortably 
fed and clothed with such articles as to make 
them useful and strong for labor. They have 
nothing to excite them, and they have all the ele- 
ments in their condition to make them propagate 
beyond men in any other condition. 

To show how they increase and multiply, I 
tell gentlemen that the slaves in the Union have 



multiplied five times ever and above all those 
which have been emancipated, which. ! suppose, 
amount to some two hundred thousand in all. I 
have no data upon which to base my calculation, 
but the free negro population in Maryland, in 
Delaware, and Virginia, hive increased very rap- 
idly from some cause, and I suppose it must be 
from emancipation. 

There are now eighty- three thousand, more than 
five times the slaves there were in 1790 in the 
slave States, while the while population of the 
slave States have increased less than five fold, by 
about ninety-three thousand. Now, sir, this state- 
ment discloses a fact which will be commented 
upon hereafter, to show that slavery crushes out 
the white population, and that, permitting sla- 
very to be carried into these free Territories, will 
have the effect to deprive the free States from all 
benefit from those Territories — aye sir, and soon 
to leave no place to which a southern white man, 
who has become poor and is crushed out by negro 
slavery from the home of his childhood can go, 
without again being met by the slave, and lie and 
his labor to compete with that of the slave. 

Sir, the census of 1850 shows the fact that there 
"are now or were then soiree six hundred and 
seven thousand persons born in the slave States, 
now residing in free States, while there are less 
than two hundred thousand persons born in free 
States residing in slave States. I speak now of 
free white persons. 

By the census tables, letter paging, page 36, it 
appears that there were emigrants from the free 
States residing in slave States as follows, in 1850: 

From free to slave States. From shire tj free States. 

Maine .' 3,316 Virginia .1/2.421 

New Hampshire 2,115 Maryland 85,786 



Vermont 2,701 

Massachusetts ,. 9,.vi; 

Ehode Island 1,728 

Connecticut 5,745 

New York 28,733 

New Jersey 18,418 

Pennsylvania 13.330 

Ohio.'. 33^780 

Michigan 659 

Indiana 24,780 

Illinois 11,203 

Iowa 

Wisconsin 
California. 



Delaware 25.140 

Kentucky 148,380 

North Carolina 57,684 

South Carolina 13,155 

Georgia 6,582 

816 

Alabama. 3.370 

Mississippi 2,849 

Louisiana 3,768 

519 

Arkansas 1,682 

1,955 Tennessee 55,241 

484 Missouri 2U,254 

26 

607,639 



Now, it is true that free States have increased 
four million more m sixty years than the slave 
States, as shown by the above tables, caused, I 
presume, by emigration from Europe and the 
South; then we have the fact that from slave 
States, with only half of our white population, 
three times as many persons have emigrated from 
slave States into free, as have emigrated from free 
into slaVe States. 

Then there is another point to which I would 
ask the attention of the committee. According to 
the census, there are in the slave Stales nine hun- 
dred and twenty-eight thousand four hundred and 
ninety-seven square miles of territory, while in 
the free States there are only six hundred and 
forty-three thousand three hundred and twenty- 
six square miles. The slave States have one third 
more territory, with one third less population, .in- 
cluding the negroes. Sir, what have the free States 
done for the slave? Has the South been abused 



by the free States? If they have, God grant it 
maybe done no more! The free States, consti- 
tuting a very large majority of the people of the 
Union, together with the slave States, have pur- 
chased Florida and Louisiana. They purchased 
Texas, not by paying money, but we got into war 
on her account with Mexico. By that war we 
paid forTexas ten times more dearly than we have 
for any other territory. 

When, of late, this slave Territory difficulty 
arose, there were five slave States created out of 
territory bought and paid for by the Union, gen- 
erally; and only one free one out of territory which 
did not constitute a portion of the colonies. I have 
shown, then, that we have purchased territory 
from the joint fund, out of which five slave States 
had grown before the Wilmot proviso was of- 
fered in Congress. The territory of the slave 
States, so ,te, soil, and everything ben- 

eficial is cone rued, far excels that of the free States. 
In Vermont there are eight thousand square miles 
of territory; and in South Caroline;, twenty-eight 
thousand; yet. though the latter is better in soil 
and climate, the former far excels in white pop- 
ulation. In 1790, the population of Virginia and 
Kentucky was twice! that of Pennsyl- 

vania and Ohio; now Pennsylvania and Ohio have 
twice the ; i of Virginia and Kentucky. 

This shows how slavery drives out and crushes 
out the free white population. 

Here let me say that there is a peculiar feature 
in the speeches of southern gentlemen. When 
they talk of population, negroes are called men; 
when they want to trespass on the rights of the 
North they jump Jim Crow, and call them prop- 
erty. [Roars of laughter.] That is their univer- 
sal change of language, it is property whenever 
they want to carry a nuisance through the coun- 
try, but when they want to get representation here, 
or to claim territory, why, the negroes are per- j 
sons. 

Mr. Chairman, Vermont is more nearly ap- 
proaching to an Abolition State than any other in 
this Union; but 1 do not think there is very much i 
real Abolitionism even there. Now, the gentle- 
man wJio introduced this bill at the other end of the ' 
Capitol has talked a great deal about Free-Soil ! 
proclivities. 1 pn claim myself of Free-Soil pro- 
clivities. By making the distinction between Free- 1 
Soil and slave-soil proclivities, he avows himself 
to have strong slave-soil proclivities. That is the i 
difference between us. He is just as much in ! 
favor of Abolitionism down South as I am. My [ 
proclivities induce me to prefer Free-Soil, and to be ; 
clear of negroes, bond or free; and the counterpart 
of that is a sLvo-soi! proclivity, desiring this negro 
nuisance intu every Territory of the Union. 

What do these compromises that gentlemen 
have been talking about amount to ? Why, con- j 
currently with the formation of the Constitution 
of this country, the wise men that framed it — | 
and I believe it can hardly be denied they were i 
about as wise, notwithstanding their old fogyism, j 
as the present generati h weare making | 

Utile giant progress in fillibusterism and other like 
things of one soVt or another. Well, the framers ; 
of the Constitution divided the Territory. They 
knew that slave labor and free labor would never 
harmoniously mingle together; that there was a j 
body of men at the North who desired to abolish 
slavery, and that if those who wanted to abolish I 



slavery, and those who wanted to retain it, went 
together into the same Territory, they would have 
a perpetual Bedlam feud, and that the Bowie knife 
would be likely to settle the controversy, quite as 
likely as the pistol the controversy with a poor 
schoolmaster. But so long as one half of the 
country was honestly given up to free labor, and 
the other half to slave labor, it was perfectly equal, 
and harmony on that subject was universal among 
the States for thirty years. The Missouri compro- 
mise was founded on the principle of an equal 
division of the territory. 1 concede that the North 
got more acres of land than the South. But the 
South got Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and 
there is territory sufficient west of Arkansas, and 
now occupied by the Indians, to make an excellent 
State. Thus they have got four States out of Lou- 
isiana; and you cannot make more than four States 
that eve fit for anything out of what the North got — 
not fit for a negro to live in, or even a white man 
— especially one who has a drove of negroes. 
Why, sir, they would prefer the soil and climate 
of Tophet to that of the Rocky Mountains north of 
40° of latitude. You must have a fine country, 
something extraordinary, for negroes to live in ; but 
the bleak and sterile granite hills of New Hamp- 
shire breed good, brave, strong white men, and 
j Presidents, and Webster, and Cass, and Wood- 
! bury, and men of that class; butgpou must have 
the fat valleys of the Missouri and Mississippi to 
grow up negroes in. [Laughter.] We have given 
.it to them, and they have got the very fat of the 
land — twice as much of it per soul as we of the 
North have. I make a single remark here in rela- 
[ tion to the expansive power of slavery. Men with 
negroes have gone ahead of all other population, 
in first settling territory, law or no law, except in 
California. Why has slavery such an expansive 
power? Because the negro crushes out the white 
man wherever slavery exists. White men detest 
selling their labor to work by the side of the negro 
slave, and the slaveholders monopolize the land in 
the slave States, so that a man cannot work his 
own little farm for himself. Three fifths of the 
population of South Carolina in 1790 were whites, 
but now almost three fifths of the population in 
that State are slaves. The white population have 
been driven out. It takes twenty-eight thousand 
square miles of territory in South Carolina, with 
her rich productions, to support a far less white 
population than eight thousand square miles of 
territory in Vermont, bleak and barren as many 
of her mountains are. 

But, without dwelling at greater length upon 
this subject, let me allude briefly to that measure 
of proposed legislation, commonly known as the 
Wilmot proviso. I never advocated any measure 
with more energy, or spent more time in its advo- 
cacy than I did, first of the annexation of Texas, 
and then the Wilmot proviso. The position that I 
took then in supporting those measures was pre- 
cisely the position I have taken here to-day in the 
argument upon this question; and it was, that sla- 
very could not be abolished, where it was strongly 
established, without ending in bloodshed or the 
removal of the white population, and giving it up 
to the slaves. Robert J. Walker, in a pamphlet he 
published, had taken great pains to make us of the 
North believe that this would be true, and 1 be- 
lieved it. He asserted if you annex Texas to 
the southern States on account of its adaptation to 



slave labor, that slave labor would be attracted i 
there from the older and northern slave States, ! 
Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, &c, ; 
and that slaves North would be so sold out; that i 
those States would become in time free States, 
and relieved of the crushing curse of the negro 
race, bond or free. I advocated that same prin- ' 
ciple before the Democracy of St. Lawrence, and : 
that county, which, up to that time, had never 
given but about eight hundred Democratic ma- 
jority, increased that majority to fifteen hundred 
in favor of James K. Polk, as I supposed they 
would. We have acquired Texas; but, instead 
of a diminution of slavery North, as I predicted 
as taking place when that event should come to 
pass, the South are now pushing and driving us 
of the North into the narrowest possible bounds, 
and crying, North and South, like the daughters 
of the horse-leech, "Give! give!" [Laughter.] 
You will find, by an examination of the census 
tables, one million nine hundred and sixty-eight 
thousand persons in the free States have increased j 
to thirteen millions of freemen in the free States 
within the last sixty years, having increased in 
numbers six and eight tenths times. If you mul- 
tiply by six and eight tenths the population of 1850 
in the frfie States, you will have, in sixty years, a 
population of more than eighty millions of people 
in the free States. Do you believe that this immense 
population will give up this country to the negro 
race? I tell gentlemen of the South, as sureas there 
is a God of justice in Heaven, that if the time shall 
come when free labor is restricted within narrow 
bounds, they will not respect your land monopoly. 
The North will crush out and drive out your land 
monopoly and slaves. The ballot will be sufficient 
for that purpose. Your claim of land monopoly, 
and of property in the sweat of man, will not, in 
that day, be any more respected than the anti- ■ 
renters respected the land monopoly of patroons ' 
in my State. White men will not see individuals 
holding five or ten thousand acres of land, with 
one "hundred cr two hundred slaves, and go hun- j 
gry themselves for want of bread with the ballot 
in their hands. 

I have no doubt, if this bill passes, that sla-i 
very will go into this Territory of Kansas to aj 
certain extent. I have no doubt, that by the time 
you have got one hundred thousand inhabitants in 
Kansas, you will have eight or ten thousand negro 
slaves there. I have no doubt, too, that the views 
entertained by southern men, and particularly by 
the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Bayly,] will 
be realized, and that every individual of color will 
he held by the southern judges, to be appointed \ 
for Kansas, to be a slave, unless he should happen i 
to have proof of his title to freedom, or a letter of, 
acquittal from slavery. That is the meaning of j 
these two territorial bills. They were got up here ; 
for this express design. Now, suppose that to be j 
the state of the case, and that of these one hun- ; 
dred thousand inhabitants seventy thousand are ! 
northern men, believing in the principle that the ! 
negro is bringing in barbarism and all sorts of vices, ! 
which make the mulatto race. Do you believe 
that these northern men will stand idle there with- 
out attempting to abolish slavery? No, sir, it; 
cannot be so. They never will submit to it. : 
When you get northern men there, you vuill have 
a contest between them and the people wno hold j 
slaves there. And I tell you, gentlemen, that when | 



it comes to that, when it comes to Abolitionism in 
the State, you will have an excitement throughout, 
this country of which all past excitement will 
have fallen into absolute insignificance. When 
you get these northern people to preaching Abo- 
litionism, the slaveholders will do as they did with 
Cassius M. Clay, when his printing press was 
destroyed in Kentucky. 

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE. Will the gentleman 
from New York permit me to say a word here : 

Mr. PERKINS. Certainly. 

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE. Mr. Chairman, by 
the leave of the gentleman from New York — as 
the occurrence to which he alludes took place in 
the city which 1 represent — I desire to say that 
Mr. Clay's press was not destroyed. It was 
taken down by an illegal assembly of people — 
very carefully packed up, however — and sent to 
merchants in the city of Cincinnati, who, I believe, 
got it in safety. 

Mr. PERKINS. There is another feature in 
this matter. If my memory serves me aright, I 
will submit it; for I have not taken special pains 
to note circumstances, but have retained them on 
my mind from time to time for forty years, and 
portions of the speech which I am now making I 
made oft times on the discussion for the acquisi- 
tion of Texas. I would say to you, then, that if 
you come in conflict with Abolitionism with your 
slaves in these newTerritbries, you will inevitably 
get up a quarrel which will shake this country to 
its center. If I had consented to any act or law 
which would allow slavery to go into Kansas or 
Nebraska, and if I became a citizen there after 
encouraging men to come there with this so called 
property, I should feel very great hesitation in- 
deed in supporting Abolitionism and confiscating 
in effect what my neighbor would call property, 
and which he had brought to my door in faith of 
a law to which I had given my consent. I do not 
believe, Mr. Chairman, I should be able to screw 
myself up to abolishing it under such circum- 
stances. The slaveholder where he is can sell 
his property to go south, to a climate, soil, and pro- 
duction fitted by the God of nature to the consti- 
tution of the negro. If there is that attachment 
between the master and the slave which some gen- 
tlemen pretend, the master need not sell; the slave 
will remain with him, and be equally useful, 
bond or free. But if there is not, then they are 
just as valuable in the market, and he can sell 
them, as masters are daily doing, between the 
northern slave States and the more southern ones, 
and take his money, which is far better and safer 
in Kansas than a drove of negroes. 

A few moments more, and I shall have done. 
In a speech made in reply to the honorable gentle- 
man from Missouri the other day, it was charged 
that the Missouri compromise had been the cause 
of abolition agitation. Now, sir, if my memory 
serves me right, (and I do not claim that it is 
very good,) to the best of my recollection, the 
:ry was perfectly quiet in relation to slavery 
for about ten years after the passage of that Mis- 
souri law. I do not believe that, until after the 
year 1830, there was an anti-slavery society in 
the United States. How did these societies arise ? 
I will tell you how I believe they had their origin. 
Men first came around soliciting donations from 
the people, and getting up meetings in favor of the 
Colonization Society. I remember distinctly that 



in the year 1632, or lb33, there came into the 
district which 1 represent a preacher, or a priest, 
appealing to the sympathies of the people for the 
purpose of raising a land to send negroes to Af- | 
rica. He ascended and preached from the pulpit. 
He was sent, there by southern colpnizationists, I 
suppose, chiefly — at any rate the Abolitionists say 
that the col 1 1 tsoi iety for the 

purpose of getting money to get rid of their free 
ies — for they Bay they never send any of their 
d what the Abolitionists say in 
this respect 1 believe to be* more than half tine. 
Well, to resume: That, man came among us with | 
chains in his hands, soliciting donations — yes, sir, 
soliciting donations for the Colonization Society. 
He shook those chains in the face of the people, 
in the pulpit, and told them that such were the 
chains in which negroes were accustomed to be 
driven off from the North to the South. Soon 
after that period — in 1834, I believe — up springs 
the Abolition Society. 

A Voice. In I 

Mr. PERKINS. I speak from recollection 
solely, not having consulted any memorandum or 
book upon the subject, and I shall therefore not 
be taken as misstating facts because the dates are 
not exactly correct. I say, soon after these colo- 
nizationists came around with those chains, others 
too came around, such as Garrison and his friends, 
and that class of people, and delivered abolition 
lectures. A next? There was more done 

by the northern " lickspittles " of the slave power 
to foster and foment this abolitionism which grew 
up than has ever been done by all the Abolition- 
ists put together. 

" The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." 

And yet, sir, the very moment these people un- 
dertook to exercise the right of fvee speech guar- 
antied to them by the Constitution, they were 
mobbed. Garrison, I believe, was drawn through 
the streets .of Boston with a rope around his neck; 
and then there was a man in New York, ['forget 
his name 

A Member. Tappan. 

Mr. PERKINS. Yes, Tappan; that is it. 
Tappan's house was completely riddled. I re- 
member, too, some of the particulars of a story 
about a mob in Illinois. I am not sure whether 
any life was taken or not. 

A Member. No life taken. 

Mr. PERKINS. I do not know that there • 
but they took the printing press of a man and 
destroyed it, and in oilier ways maltreated 
Now, sir, when our people saw the effect of the 
slave influence manifested in this way, simply for 
the purpose of carrying on a little traffic with the 
South; when we see men in reputable standing 
cutting up such fantastic tricks as that, can one' 
wonder that the people of the North cried out, if 
such things be done in the green tree of freedom, 
what must be done in the dry tree of slaver] # 
wonder that anti-slavery societies were fori; 
every portion of the North, and sprung up like ' 
dragons' teeth. 

Sir, it was not the Missouri compromise that 
fomented Abolition in the North. No, sir; the 
North submitted to that, and there was nothing to 
disturb the peace and quiet of the country upon ] 
this subject until those men at the North who I 
assume to be extra southern, and southern men' 



themselves, commenced to agitate. Why, sir, the 
right which had never been denied to present peti- 
tions in this House for the abolition of slavery in 
the District of Columbia, or elsewhere, was denied. 
They refused to receive them. 1 do not pretend 
to say that such petitions would do any good. 
There was no use in pn '.em. But then 

the right to present them had been admitted ever ' 
since the organization of the Government, and the 
only effect oftienyinir that right was again to com- 
mence agitation in the North, \ I not 
hive been commenced but for this movement upon 
the part of pro-slavery men. John Quincy Adams 
was not the nmn I nstituents' peti- 
insultingly kicked out of Congress. Heand 
his compeers agitated 'until they g'>l the Atherton 
rule abolished. As soon as petitions were re- 
ceived, the Abolitionists nearly quit the trade of 
getting them up. 

Next an excitement d about the an- 

nexation of Texas. The North claimed that the 
territory acquired from that annexation should be 
divided, and a part of it made i'ree territory. We 
acquired in all three hundred thousand or four 
hundred thousand square miles of territory from 
the annexation of Tex ng that fur which 

you paid $10,000,000, and about an eqiral num- 
ber of square miles of territory west of the Del 
Norte. The Ten i worth four 

times as m- il purposes as all the 

Territory of New ornia; 

would have been of four times the value of 
all our acquisitions from Mexico, but fortheafter- 
discovery of the gold mines. But, I say, that for 
agricultural purposes, Texas was worth more than 
four times as much as all your territory acquired 
i the Rio Grande. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, the Wilmot proviso 
a fair and honest proposition, if it had been 
accorded.it would have been but acceding to a 
demand from the North which was perfectly just 
and right. Why, sir, theSouth had already two 
square miles of territory in proportion to popula- 
tion to where the North had one. The gentleman 
from Ohio, [Mr. Disney,] the other day, told us 
that slavery had been established in Utah. I did 
not know it before; but, with that Territory given 
to the South, they have still more territory, in pro- 
portion to population, twice over, than the free 
States. But of ; have more to sayby- 

and-by. I will only say, that they have af. least 
one third more square miles than the North. Now, 
sir, ! had supposed that portion would be suffi- 
cient to satisfy the intense slave- vities, 
even of the illustrious author of th 
• The introduction of this a the most 
extraordinary political move of v. I i ever 
heard during the whole course of my life. The 
country was ir. a condition of perfect quiet. The 
author was not prepared to recommend a repeal 
of the Missouri compromise until worked upon 
by some sort of machinery, I do not exactly 
know what; but a kind of machinery that he 
thinks grinds out Presidents, when skillfully run. 
[Roars of laughter.] It screwed up the author 
of the bill to the repeal of the Missouri act, and 
so we have this bill brought forward. What is' 
more extraordinary than anything else, is this 
monstrosity of legislation, c friends a 
tabula nBo, which means blank for the judge to be 
appointed by the Senate to write on it just what 



he pleases on the subject of slavery. So far as 
statesmanship is concerned, it must have strained 
the intellect of the tallest kind of a little giant to 
enact a tabula rasa — a blank. [Laughter.] The 
next thing, as I understand it, is fillibusteiism to 
annex Cuba; and oat of Cuba we are to have three 
or more slave States, notwithstanding this Ne- 
braska outrage. If the Devil himself had under- 
taken to devise a scheme to create division in the 
:h on the Cuba question, he could not have 
obtained one better calculated for his purpose 
than this one. I do not know but I may as well 
stop here. 

[Cries all over the Hall, " Go on ! we want to 
hear you out!"] 

Mr. PERKINS. Very well. I am quite con- 
tented, for one, with the territory of which v/e 
are possessed. If the South wan 
us into a war with Great Britain, I think that it 
will turn out like the war of 1813; though the 
North were opposed to it, they ran away with al! 
the profits a ils. If you get into that war, 

we are more likely to get New Brunswick and 
Canada than the-South are Cuba. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I have but a single remark 
to make further. The views of Robert J. Walker, 
and the natural laws of God, and the laws of the 
construction of the negro race, are as plainly writ- 
ten as anything can be. At the earliest nzs, by 
Divine Providence, the negroes were placed in the 
center of the earth, and in a very hot elin 
where white men could not work and live. That 
was the decree of the Almighty. They were 
brought here for some purpose, but I do not know 
what it is. If you ever get rid of slavery, if yon 



ever thin it; if you ever make yourselves secure, 
it will be by sending the negroes, bond or free, 
south. If you can get it into Yucatan and Cen- 
tral America, very well. Take it there, for aught 
I care. By the present bill, which repeals that 
compromise of thirty years standing, you.cause an 
amount of irritation, and produce consequences, 
of which no man can foresee the event. This cause- 
less fire-brand, the repeal of the Missouri compro- 
mise, tin-own in our midst, 1 fear may be one of 
the links in the chain of events which bind together 
the par:!., the present, and the future; ay, to that 
future which humanity can only look at with awe 
and trembling. 

You cannot abolish slavery. You may possibly 
remove it. You may send it South, and maintain 
it South. You may also, possibly, long maintain 
it where it now exists. Every day and every 
year adds accumulated and aggravated difficulties 
to the emancipation of the slaves. In sixty years 
more you will have fifteen or twenty million 
slaves, and what can you do with them ? You 
have perhaps territory enough already within your 
grasp to answer the purpose of sixty millions of 
people. But when you get anything like that, you 
will have twice more negroes than white men in 
the slave States; and they will, as they have dene, 
crush out the laboring white men. The census 
shows that the slaves have .increased vastly faster 
than the white men; and you cannot get rid of 
niggerdom in the slave States. The negroes will 
be so much more numerous than the white men 
that every white man will be under the necessity 
of being armed to the teeth to secure his personal 
safety. 



Printed at the Coiijrcssional G.'ofoe Office. 



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